


Happy Endings, Hate, and Other Things I'm Over

by LadyShadowphyre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Library, Barista Castiel (Supernatural), Human Castiel, Librarian Sam Winchester, M/M, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 10:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17262866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/pseuds/LadyShadowphyre
Summary: Depending on whom you asked, either the library had a cafe attached to it, or the cafe had a library attached.





	Happy Endings, Hate, and Other Things I'm Over

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @sam-spirit-winchester on tumblr for the Sastiel Secret Santa Gift Exchange!

**D** EPENDING ON WHOM you asked, either the library had a cafe attached to it, or the cafe had a library attached to it. In actuality, 'Saving Grace Cafe and Reading Room' was not connected to the public library in any way besides being physically next door to the building. Dean liked to claim that the place didn't actually exist in real time or space, that it was a front for the fae to lure in desperate, caffeine-deprived college students and trap them with food and drink into the service of the Faerie Courts. Sam liked to remind Dean that he was full of shit and could he please keep his weird conspiracy theories about liminal spaces to himself because Sam's midterm essays were not going to write themselves.

What both of them knew but neither of them acknowledged was that Sam agreed with Dean that there was something otherworldly about Saving Grace. It wasn't the cafe itself, though, despite the way it often seemed as if there was some form of wormhole connecting the cafe to the library. Nor was it the food and drink served, although many of his classmates swore by their coffee during midterms and finals, and the library staff was conspicuously permissive about patrons having cups from Saving Grace among the stacks or having their books taken into the cafe without checking them out first. Instead, the otherworldly element came in the form of the primary third shift barista, Castiel Parasire.

Whenever he was behind the counter, Castiel was an exemplary barista. He knew every kind of drink that could be made with tea or coffee, whether it was on the menu or not, and only ever charged the asking price for the cup size, no matter how many different additives went into the cup itself. He never wrote anything down on the cups when he made the drinks, but remembered the exact instructions required or requested, and remembered the quirks of regular customers like Rebecca's dairy allergy or Sam's preference for skim milk in his lattes. He never raised his voice above the gentle, rasping rumble that remained at comfortable conversation level, and his two coworkers, Balt and Anna, were sent out from behind the counter to deliver the completed drink to patrons who chose to sit at tables or disappear into the stacks. They always found the person, too, which made some people think they might be just as otherworldly as Castiel was believed to be, but Balt just scoffed and Anna always shrugged. "He just knows," they would say, and that would be that.

And then there was Break Time. For any other employee of the cafe, the capital letters were most likely not warranted, but for Castiel it absolutely was. At exactly eleven-fifty, Castiel removed his apron and set about making himself a cup of blueberry green tea with honey before adjourning to a corner table nearest the library and sitting down, his back to the corner. There he sat, taking periodic sips of his tea, until he drained the last of it at exactly ten after midnight and returned to his place behind the counter, putting his apron back on, and sliding into whatever task needed doing at that moment. It was precise, more regular than any clock, and altogether uncanny, because Castiel didn't just sit there in silence like some sort of tea-drinking robot. If anyone approached him, he would raise his eyes from his cup and pin the person with his celestial blue stare before saying something, only ever a single sentence, and look down at his tea again. It was never the same sentence twice, either, and it had become almost like a rite of passage for students to come and sit before him and hear whatever Castiel had to say to them.

"There are no happy endings because every end is just another beginning to a different story," he had told a blonde girl named Becky, who had burst into tears and needed several minutes sitting across from him before she could get herself under control enough to leave, though she was smiling hopefully when she did.

"Hatred is a passion that burns hotter than fire and leaves nothing but ashes in your heart," he had intoned when Ansem Weems flopped into the chair across from him one night, and refused to elaborate when the young man angrily demanded an explanation, leaving him to depart in a huff. For Ansem's twin brother Andy, when he came over to apologize for his brother, Castiel said, "Everyone is the hero of their own story, but they are not always the hero of someone else's."

"Those who hunt monsters should take care not to become a monster themselves," was said to Detective Walker when he came in to ask questions of the patrons and staff after Ansem's arrest and Andy's disappearance.

"You some kinda witch?" Walker demanded suspiciously of him, but Castiel had refused to say anything more and Walker had finally left, defeated, when Castiel went back on duty and acted like he hadn't spoken to the man at all.

The one and only time Professor Sunder came into the cafe, ostensibly looking for a grad student whose paper was a week late, Castiel had informed her that, "The ones who seek most to control the future are the ones most trapped and shackled by the past." She had turned pale and fled, never to be seen near Saving Grace again.

Even Dean had given in to curiosity once - only once - and gone to see what Castiel might say to him. He never told Sam what it was, either, but he was quiet and pensive for days afterwards until, over another dinner of college student cooked cuisine, he announced that he was heading to Indiana to see an old girlfriend who he'd learned had a kid that the dates matched up well enough to possibly be his.

"Last thing I want to do is be a worse father to the kid than Dad was to us," he told Sam, poking the ramen noodles with his plastic fork.

"You really think the kid might be yours?" Sam asked, torn between cautious elation at being an uncle and concern for his big brother. Dean shrugged.

"Lisa says no, but your boyfriend Cas seems to think she'd lie about it to keep from trapping me or something if what he said to me that time is anything to go by," he said.

"He's not my 'boyfriend'," Sam mumbled, his face burning red with embarrassment that only got hotter as Dean waggled his eyebrows above a knowing leer.

"Try not to eye-fuck him so much when you're in that crazy cafe next time and maybe I'll believe you, bitch."

"Jerk!"

 

**I** N THE WEEK before Graduation, Sam had gone to Saving Grace nightly with Jess and Brady and another several of their friends. One by one, over the course of six consecutive nights, Sam watched as his friends all went before the "Midnight Guru" as Brady had called Castiel once, and were given their words of wisdom. One by one, he watched his friends be told something that clearly struck a chord with them.

Sometimes it was uncannily spot on. Brady, who had never mentioned inside the cafe that he was going into Nursing, had been told, "Never spread yourself so thin helping to heal others that you forget to heal yourself."

Other times, it was incomprehensible. Garth was told "Wookie," which made zero sense but seemed to cheer the squirrely young man up immensely, and Sam had no idea what "Explaining freedom to angels is a bit like teaching poetry to fish," could mean or what it had to do with anything, but Jess seemed satisfied with it.

It was the last day before Graduation when ten to midnight rolled around and, almost before Castiel had settled into his seat, Brady was shoving Sam over to the little corner table. Even having expected it, the move took Sam off guard enough that he stumbled into the table, causing Castiel's tea to slosh over the side of the cup.

"Uh, sorry," Sam mumbled as he carefully got his feet under him again and straightened up. Castiel stilled, his hand halfway to the cup, then completed the motion without a word or glance.

This left Sam in a curious feeling of being disconnected, as if he had crossed sideways through a doorway and accidentally seen behind the curtain. He had watched Castiel for months, always too awed by him to try and speak more than a mumble of his order and never daring to approach him during Break Time. Now here he was, not even sitting in front of the beautiful man yet, but already part of the pattern, disrupting the usual flow without receiving the usual response. A glance behind him showed Brady making kissing faces at his back until Jess "nudged" him with her elbow hard enough to leave him wheezing as she motioned for Sam to sit.

He sat.

For a moment, Castiel didn't move, and Sam wondered if he'd wasted his chance with his earlier blunder. Then, slowly, the other man lifted his head and Sam fancied he could feel the otherworldly weight of those blue eyes sliding up and over him, piercing through fabric and flesh to see into his soul. Blue eyes met his directly for the first time and Sam nearly forgot to breathe as he gazed back, his heartbeat loud and erratic in his ears, so loud Sam halfway worried that its beating might drown out whatever Castiel might say. Castiel stared at him a moment longer, then opened his mouth.

"You have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."

Sam blinked.

_ Castiel _ blinked, then dropped his eyes again, a blush of pink spreading slowly from his ears across his cheeks. Sam felt his own cheeks warming as the world tilted around him and then suddenly snapped back into place with something fundamental changed, some part inside of him twisting open and unfurling in a way he couldn't describe and knew he couldn't stop, pulling up and opening, and he was opening his mouth without conscious direction, the words bubbling up and spilling out of him.

"It's easier to see parts of yourself in others than in a polished mirror."

"Dude,  _ what? _ " he heard Brady mutter from a seeming impossible distance, but he paid him no mind, his eyes fixed on the man in front of him.

And Castiel looked up at him, peering up from beneath the fringe of tousled hair with a shyness and vulnerable wariness that Sam had never seen. Whatever he saw in Sam's face made him smile, a broad and glowing grin that flashed white teeth and creased his cheeks and the corners of his eyes and made Sam feel like he'd stepped out into full sunlight in the middle of the night. He smiled back, just as broadly, just as bright, and felt the last piece of the puzzle that was this man click into place.

_ It's you. _

_ I found you. _

They spent the rest of Castiel's break seated across from each other, their fingers entwined on top of the table as Castiel sipped his tea. Sam dared to steal a sip from the sloshed liquid in the saucer while Castiel held the cup and discovered that it was peppermint tea with honey, and that Castiel's laugh was as rough and sensual as his voice. When the clock turned over to ten after the hour, they got up together, walking hand in hand back to the counter where they separated, ignoring the looks they got from Sam's friends and Castiel's co-workers as Sam scribbled his number on Castiel's inner arm with a sharpie and Castiel kissed Sam's fingers before sliding up to take over the mocha Anna was making.

"Okay," Sam told Dean when he saw his brother the next day at Graduation, a sleepy-eyed Castiel tucked into his side under one arm, "so he's definitely my boyfriend."

Dean kindly waited to say "I fucking told you so" via text message three hours later.

 

**T** HERE IS A cafe attached to the library or a library attached to the cafe, depending on whom you ask. The doors to both are always open to desperate students and seekers of truth or knowledge, but the best time to come in and get a book or a drink is between the hours of ten at night and four in the morning.

Castiel Parasire is the head barista of Saving Grace Cafe and Reading Room. He remembers regulars and never has to write down your order before he makes it. If you have to run off into the library before your drink his ready, he sends Balt or Anna after you with your drink, never having to worry that the librarians would turn them away.

The night librarian is Sam Winchester, a soft-spoken giant who always knows how to find the books you need, even when you don't know which books they are, and never minds being asked to reach the top shelves for someone. Whenever a particularly stressed student comes in, he will direct them first to the cafe to place their order, and by the time they return he has a study table all set up and ready for them to work.

Every night, when the clocks click over to eleven-fifty, Sam leaves the circulation desk and walks into Saving Grace to a little corner table. He is joined there by Castiel, bearing two cups of fresh brewed tea with honey, and together they will sit, side by side, sipping their tea in perfect silence together until the clocks tick over to ten after midnight. Then they will rise, and Sam will walk Castiel back to the counter where they will exchange kisses before Sam leaves Castiel to slot himself back into the flow of work as he returns to the library desk once more.

If you approach them during this time, one or the other of them will lift their head and look at you with eyes of piercing blue or glowing sunflower gold, and speak a single sentence to you before looking down again. There is no pattern to which will speak, and they never repeat a sentence, nor respond to further inquiries, but each time their words will hold a meaning for the recipient, whether wisdom or prophecy. It's a bit of a rite of passage for students to sit before them and hear the Midnight Oracles speak at least once before Graduation.

What will they say to you?

**-End-**


End file.
